A data-processing system that handles incoming telephone calls has to determine where each call is to be routed and then has to route each call to the intended recipient. One such system is a “call center,” which is a physical place where incoming calls are handled by an organization. Typically, a call center has the ability to handle a large amount of call traffic concurrently, screening calls and forwarding those calls to representatives who are qualified to handle them. Call centers are typically used by businesses to support customer sales or service efforts.
Call centers use a variety of different technologies and concepts to help improve performance and the customer experience. A call center with automatic call distribution assigns the calls to representatives in the order in which they are received. Another call center might assign the call to a particular representative for a specific reason. For example, the call center of a customer support service for a pet store might assign to a first representative all calls having to do with cats and dogs, while it might assign to a second representative all calls having to do with fish. Yet another call center might be based on the concept of customer advocacy, which considers the caller's importance to the business. In supporting advocacy, the call center examines the information available on the caller, including any call history that has involved the caller, and routes the call based on the available information.
Call centers often comprise workstations with graphical user interfaces (GUI) that the organization's representatives at the call center use. When an incoming call arrives at the call center, the GUI might display a “screen pop” that reveals caller-related information, including who the caller is, what the caller might be calling about, and any call history that has involved the caller. This enables the representative who is processing the call to address the caller's need, either by taking the call directly or by forwarding the call to another representative who might be better able to handle the call. Note that there are call centers in which some of the organization's representatives are geographically dispersed, as opposed to being situated at workstations at an on-premises location of the organization. Therefore, some of the representatives to whom calls are being forwarded might be at an off-premises terminal: at home, at an airport, in a hotel room, or somewhere else.
One problem that can occur is when one or more calls are presently on hold for a particular off-premises representative. In this scenario, the call center has queued the calls for the off-premises representative who is, for example, at her cell phone. Once the calls have been queued for the representative, she has limited options for processing the calls in an effective manner, other than to take the calls directly. Furthermore, what might have seemed reasonable to the on-premises representative with respect to the assigning of calls might not be reasonable at times to the particular off-premises representative.